Fidelis Munyoro
Chief Court Reporter
THE multi-million-dollar legal warfare tearing apart the Chingwena family and the Croco Motors business empire collapsed for a fifth consecutive time this week.
In a judgment released this week, Constitutional Court Judge Justice Chinembiri Bhunu, ruling in his capacity as a Supreme Court judge, fiercely rebuked the applicant, Peter Tapiwa Chingwena, for subjecting the courts and his high-profile relatives to a relentless, procedurally flawed legal campaign.
Striking the case off the roll with a punishing financial penalty, Justice Bhunu laid bare the legal team’s incompetence, noting that the litigation had degenerated into an embarrassing farce.
“The applicant’s case is marred by a costly parody of errors,” Justice Bhunu said. “The applicant needs to put his house in order before dragging the respondents to court. He needs to act with due care and diligence without putting the respondents to unnecessary costs.”
The high-stakes dispute pits Peter Tapiwa Chingwena against corporate giants Croco Investments, Croco Holdings, and Croco Motors, alongside prominent business moguls Moses Tonderai Chingwena, Farai Matsika, and several others.
Peter sought condonation and an extension of time to appeal a prior High Court ruling, an application that landed in the chamber a staggering nine months past its legal deadline.
This latest failure marks the fifth time Peter’s legal team has attempted and failed to bring the matter properly before the court.
The court record highlights a trail of four previous failed attempts across 2024 and 2025, all of which crumbled due to fatal procedural irregularities.
Advocate Thabani Mpofu, with T Chagonda representing the first to fifth respondents — Croco Investments, Croco Holdings, Croco Motors, Moses Tonderai Chingwena and Anne Marrie Nomsa Grace Chingwena — successfully argued that the applicant had fundamentally violated Practice Direction 3 of 2013.
Advocates David Ocheng and Thembinkosi Magwaliba represented Tonderai Wayne Chingwena and the Registrar of Companies.
The rule mandates that once a matter is struck off the roll, a litigant has a strict 30-day window to rectify defects.
Failing to do so means the matter is legally deemed abandoned. Furthermore, the respondents accused Peter of dishonesty, revealing that he was covertly trying to appeal a consent judgment — an action explicitly prohibited by Zimbabwean law.
The applicant’s counsel, Adv Regina Mabwe, instructed by Anne Attorneys, attempted to salvage the sinking ship by arguing that the lower court’s decision had a final, binding effect.
However, she could not escape the strict 30-day rule. Justice Bhunu agreed with the respondents’ heavy-hitting legal teams, ruling that because the 30-day window closed long ago, the door was firmly shut.
He stated that the applicant is entirely improper before the court, leaving nothing valid for the bench to even consider.
While the respondents’ powerhouse legal teams lobbied for a total dismissal of the case to end the protracted corporate saga,
Justice Bhunu clarified that because the application was structurally invalid from its inception, there was technically “no application before me to dismiss.”
Instead, the judge ordered the matter struck off the roll. To punish the reckless nature of the litigation, Justice Bhunu slammed the applicant with costs on the punitive “legal practitioner and client scale.”
This decision leaves Peter facing an enormous legal bill from top-tier law firms Atherstone & Cook and Bera Masamba, while the boardrooms of Croco Motors breathe a temporary sigh of relief.
